Georgios Samaras

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Georgios Samaras (Greek: Γιώργος Σαμαράς (IPA= /ye'oryios sama'ras/); born February 21, 1985 in Heraklion, Greece) is a Greek footballer who currently plays as a striker for Celtic, on loan from Manchester City. He is noted for use of the ball on the ground, even though he stands at 1.93m (6ft 4in).

[edit] Club career

[edit] Heerenveen

Samaras moved to the Netherlands at the age of 16, signing for Heerenveen. He made his first team debut in the 2003-04 season, starting a total of ten matches. This was followed by another successful two seasons in the Dutch top flight before some Premiership clubs started showing interest in the striker. After interest from teams like Arsenal,^[1] he joined Manchester City for a fee of £5.25 million (rising to £6 million) in January 2006 making him the most expensive Greek player in Europe.

[edit] Manchester City

His Manchester City debut came in as a substitute against Newcastle United, scoring his first goal in English football on February 12, 2006 in a 3-2 victory over Charlton Athletic. Following a good start with Manchester City Samaras had a mixed season in the Premiership during 2006-07, scoring only 6 goals from 42 appearances (most of which were made as a substitute). The highlight of his season was scoring two late goals in a 2-1 victory over Everton. Although Samaras was criticised by some journalists for his lack of goals, Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce(who rarely started the Greek), always maintained that he would develop in to a great striker saying "Georgios is a 21-year-old playing in the Premiership for the first time in his life. He's a young man learning the game in the hardest league to learn ^[2]."

Following the departure of Stuart Pearce, Samaras did not feature in the premiership for Manchester City in the first two months of the 2007-08 season under new manager Sven-Göran Eriksson with some reports claiming that he was on his way out following the signing of 8 new players by the new City manager.^[3] However, Samaras refused to leave even after early interest from Middlesbrough ^[4] preferring to fight for his place in the Manchester City team.

On September 25 Samaras got his first game of the 2007/2008 season for City in the Carling Cup game against Norwich City FC. Samaras repaid Eriksson's faith in him by scoring the winning goal in the '90th minute. Samaras featured in a few more premiership games following that, earning Sven's praises for his work ethic, professionalism and willingness to fight for his place in the team.^[5] However transfer speculation continued from teams like Birmingham City ^[6] but finally, on January 29, 2008, Celtic F.C. signed Samaras on loan until the end of the season, with an option to buy the player at the end of the loan.

[edit] Celtic

It was confirmed that he would wear the number 9 jersey for Celtic while on loan. ^[7] The Greek striker confirmed that as well as helping Celtic, one of the reasons he moved was in order to get more games so that he would be considered for the Greek national team in the Euro 2008 competition. Samaras scored on his debut for Celtic, coming on as a sub during a 5-1 victory over Kilmarnock FC. His successful start continued with goals against Hibernian FC, Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC and Gretna FC in his first few games. He then added again to his goal tally by heading the only goal against Aberdeen in an 1-0 win on April 19th. Georgios scored is most recent goal after coming on as a substitute against Motherwell and heading in a Barry Robson corner to seal Celtic's 3 points. The final result was Motherwell 1-2 Celtic F.C.. The season ended in triumph for Samaras with Celtic becoming SPL champions on the last day of the league, gaining Samaras his first Championship medal.

[edit] International career

Interestingly, Samaras was actually eligible to play for Australia as a youngster. His father Giannis was born in Melbourne but eventually moved to Greece at the age of 13 and had a successful career in football himself, playing for Panathinaikos and the national team. In fact his grandfather (also Georgios) was one of the founding members of South Melbourne FC ^[8]. Although technically eligible, the opportunity to play for Australia was never pursued as Samaras played for the country of his nationality, blood and birth - Greece.

He made his debut for Greece only 7 days after his 21st birthday on 28 February 2006 in a friendly game against Belarus and scored the only goal of the game. He has since featured in some of Greece's Euro 2008 qualifiers and is seen as one of the team's rising stars. In May 2008, it was confirmed that he would be a part of the Greece squad for the Euro 2008 tournament.

[edit] Honours

Clydesdale Bank Premier League Title - 07/08 Season.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Georgios Samaras career stats at Soccerbase
• FootballDatabase.com Profile
• Georgios Samaras Unofficial Fan Site

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